What Happened to "History" in File Open in Acrobat 10?

[borton1035]

Purchased Acrobat 10.  In Adobe 9, I ejoyed the "History" function in the File/Open area.  I would not recall the name of the file, but, e.g., knew I had opened it within the last 7 days, or last day, or last month.  So, allowing someone to see the "history" or the documents opened within  particular past history period was quite helpful.  Did not see it in Acrobat 10.  i am having a problem that had me at Tech Level 2 and they are now upgrading it to enior Technican.  But, I asked the gentleman to check to see "what happened" to "history".  When he called back as scheduled within one week (very pleasant to work with), he told me that Adobe had simply REMOVED the history capbility in the "open files" part of the program.  I assume what he told me is true.  But, if anyone knows to the contrary, I would appreciate the knowledge of how to find and use "history" in the manner described.  And, why in the world woould they remove such a helpful tool?

[J__Crosetti]

I thought it was just me overlooking it or Adobe came up with a new name for the organizer. GONE!?!? This is a major punch in the gut. I relied on it. You just added on about 1/2 hour to my work day to look for old PDFs . . . thanks a lot. The Organizer was a major help for ppl who delt with PDFs daily. You may say that it was not popular or whatever, but the people who used it NEEDED that function!  

As Dave M. said,"As we have confirmed several times on these forums, Organizer has been removed ....". If you had to re-iterate it several times doesn't that tell you that many people used it?

BRING IT BACK!!!

Looks like I'll just work off 9 again...it meant that much.

Have A Nice Day!

[Dave Merchant]

Offhand I think we've had about 30 people asking about it. Tens of millions of people use the Acrobat X Family.

[gener7]

I am somewhat disappointed myself because the browser also kept a record of online PDFs that I accessed. I would welcome a function like this to where I can also remove pdfs from the list that I no longer need.

But I do have somewhat of a handy tip for Windows 7 users. It is the "Jump List."  Simply place the Acrobat X icon into the Windows taskbar. By right-clicking on the Acrobat icon,you will see the 10 most recent documents you have opened.  Not enough?

Right click on a blank area in the Windows taskbar. Choose Properties,and in the dialog box click on the Start Menu tab,then on the "Customize" button.

At the bottom of the "Customize Start Menu" dialog is "Number of Recent Items to display in Jump Lists"  The default is 10. You can set it up to 60.

Usually 30 works for me. All taskbar items will remember the last 30 items accessed,and you can remove or pin items to that list.

[MikeS-B]

Gener7 - That is the single most useful computing tip I've received all year.  Thanks so much!  This looks like it may be even better than Organizer, because that took forever to load.  I signed up for an account on this forum just so I could thank you.  Huge help! 

[gener7]

Thanks for letting me know,Mike! I always wonder if what I typed helped someone or just went into the Cloud Bitbucket.

And oh yes,welcome to the forums. I hope there will much more good advice to come your way.

Gene

[BT009]

Not having organizer in Acrobat XI is very disapointing.  I delayed upgrading to Acrobat X because of it, and now I subscribed to Creative Cloud, and this is disapointing to not see organizer integrated into the cloud services.  Guess I'll have to change my workflow.

[Dave Merchant]

Organizer won't be returning, and there was no suggestion that Acrobat XI was to have included it.

[tsfg]

Wouldn't it be a good idea  when a feature, like the organizer, is terminated to put the source code to the comunity especially when it is already organized as a plugin.

This would be a good step of adobe to give the users who what to organize themself to maintain the further developement.

The organizer was a really helpful feature. To remove it only while most useres have not known about this somehow hidden feature until they have shown it by a supervisor / friend might be not the best solution.

For me it was one reason to stay at version 9 still... I miss the organizer in newer versions!

[Stepic7]

That's really umbelievable such useful feature has been removed

A journal keeping record of the work done on the pdf documents open is a must!

Behind the "History" feature there is all the work done on reading and collecting documents which otherwise must be made manually since certainly the last open documents in Windows doesn't help restoring.

I don't think I will continue on using next versions of Acrobat, the XI, as it seams it does not have this feature either.

Can I mount on my computer also an older version of Acrobat, I have the 9th, just for reading and annotations?

Dave, at least the chance for a plugin?!

[Loutz]

It's borderline bizzare. How difficult can it be? Doesn't every web browser have this feature?

[gener7]

Here's an item I posted earlier. Pin your Acrobat icon to the task bar and use its' Jump list.

Not the same as having the Organizer but it should work.

I do have somewhat of a handy tip for Windows 7 users. It is the "Jump List."  Simply place the Acrobat X icon into the Windows taskbar. By right-clicking on the Acrobat icon,you will see the 10 most recent documents you have opened.  Not enough?

Right click on a blank area in the Windows taskbar. Choose Properties,and in the dialog box click on the Start Menu tab,then on the "Customize" button.

At the bottom of the "Customize Start Menu" dialog is "Number of Recent Items to display in Jump Lists"  The default is 10. You can set it up to 60.

Usually 30 works for me. All taskbar items will remember the last 30 items accessed,and you can remove or pin items to that list.

[Stepic7]

If you read more carefully what the post is about you will se the question is VERY different

Here there is a debate with Adobe about a very useful feature that has been withdrawn in recent versions.

If you had been a older user of Adobe you will understand that this is very discouraging

Please don't give Adobe an alibi otherwise not requested

thanks

[gener7]

I was not aware I was giving Adobe an alibi. If you read for understanding I was giving out a way to at least see recent files.  This is just a repeat of my earlier post in this thread that has helped others. Don't like it, don't use it.

My first purchase was Acrobat 7 Standard and yes I am well aware of the Organizer.

Debate is a meaningless word here. Adobe is a private company, Acrobat is their property.

You're welcome

[Loutz]

That's a nice work around. Thanks for this.

[gener7]

Glad it worked for you.

I have not searched but I wonder if there is some company out there offering pdf organizer software?

Gene

[Guest]

SKIM has this feature. However, it is for Mac only - and it's free!

[PattyL_CO]

At the very least, make the number of Edit->Preferences->General->Documents "Documents in recently used list" larger than 10. I suggest at least 20, list should cascade or otherwise accessible to the last item in the list on a smaller screen. Even better, Acrobat could remember the docs you had open when you shut down your system and bring them back up when the system reboots.

[jedi_twitch]

I know this post is old, but FYI if you miss Organizer you can use Apple's Preview instead. Go to preferences and choose "Open groups of files in one window" and then open multiple pdfs and they'll all show up in the sidebar of the document. It won't save this way, but at least all the docs are together while you're working.

[Michael BC]

I also cannot believe it has been removed. I used the organizer to select and then email multiple PDFs that are retrieved by, and stored in, a reference management program. Now I think my workflow has to be to select to email them one at a time, or save each of such provisional emails as drafts, and then drag them into a single response. This is certainly a step backwards unless there is a feature to select and send, or at least send all currently opened PDFs, in a single email???

[Stepic7]

That's really umbelievable such useful feature has been removed

A journal keeping record of the work done on the pdf documents open is a must!

Behind the "History" feature there is all the work done on reading and collecting documents which otherwise must be made manually since certainly the last open documents in Windows doesn't help restoring.

I don't think I will continue on using next versions of Acrobat, the XI, as it seams it does not have this feature either.

Can I mount on my computer also an older version of Acrobat, I have the 9th, just for reading and annotations?

Dave, at least the chance for a plugin?!

[try67]

To anyone interested in returning the File History functionality to Acrobat/Reader, I've just finished developing a tool that does just that. For more information about it you can contact me by PM or email (try6767 [at] gmail.com).

[George_Johnson]

Adobe just released an update to Acrobat/Reader 11 that includes a new feature that significantly enhances the recently open files list, as described in the release notes: 11.0.09 Planned update, Sept 16, 2014 — Acrobat and Adobe Reader Release Notes

This brings back a lot of the functionality that was available with the former History feature.